Feature Request: summon from all, with preference for favorites

[tsemoana]

I have many, many pets. With favourites, I only see such a limited subset of my pets. I would love for an option where PetWalker summons from all, but gives preference to favourites in a way that every x pets is a favourite and the rest is random.

Ideally one would be able to set the value for x in settings.

And, in a perfect world, I would like it if the summon from all wouldn't repeat until all non-favourite pets have been summoned once. To make sure that every one of them gets their turn to be out in the world.

[tflo]

Thanks for the suggestions.

So, to sum it up:

1. Mixed Favorites/All mode for random summoning, with a configurable percentage of favorites.
2. Save summoned pets as ‘seen’ when in random-from-all mode and exclude them from the pool. Also exclude favorites in All mode (unless option 1 is enabled, ofc).

I actually like #‍1, and it shouldn't be too hard to implement. Cannot promise an ETA though.

#‍2 is also interesting but a bit more complex:

• Should this be per pet (GUID) or per species?
  • Per-species would probably make more sense, but then not every pet would have its "turn to be out in the world", assuming you have more than one per species.
  • We could also do this by name (note to myself: FindPetIDByName). So, same-species pets with different custom names, would be individuals. Less ideal if someone gives the same name to multiple pets.
• Per name or species would also be more reliable, since pet GUIDs are not 100% stable (sometimes reassigned by the game).
• Possible complications and additional resource usage with thousands of pets. At some point we'll have to save and check a table with thousands of entries; may be negligible or not, not sure. Table will be smaller in name/species variant, but one additional API call per pet every time the pool is updated.

[tsemoana]

I actually like #‍1, and it shouldn't be too hard to implement. Cannot promise an ETA though.

Cool!

For 2: I'm not quite sure what the game means by 'species'
But for me, I personally have no duplicate pets. If every pet counts as a species, then that would work. Otherwise by name would seem to make the most sense to me.

I currently have 1444 pets :D So, the add-on would need to keep track of that many to make sure there are no repeats. If that helps in calculations for resource usage.

[tflo]

not quite sure what the game means by 'species'

Well, the name of the species is usually the default name of the pet, or, if your pet has a custom name, the name that appears below:

Usually you can have 3 pets of each species (sometimes only one).

I currently have 1444 pets :D So, […] If that helps in calculations for resource usage.

Oh, that’s still sane. I was rather concerned about numbers like this 🙄:

---

Once I have the first halfway working version (of feature #⁠1), I’ll upload it here for you to beta-test (if you want).

[tsemoana]

Re: species. Check, that was what I was thinking it meant.

Re numbers: I'm not a big battler, just a collector. So I make sure to only ever have 1 of each species. :D

Once I have the first halfway working version (of feature #⁠1), I’ll upload it here for you to beta-test (if you want).

Happy to!

[tflo]

OK, here the first version:

PetWalker-3.0.0-dev1.zip See updates in follow up posts.

Most bugs are fixed, but some are still be in, for example the coloring of the confirmation messages. You may find more 😉

The info about the current favorites probability setting is not yet in the /pw s Status display, will be added later. Same with the Help text.

Let me know what you think.

---

Short description, copied from the changelog (draft):

<See most recent version below>

[tflo]

New version:

PetWalker3.0.0-dev2.zip New version below.

The actual pool should now display correctly in the “Summoned new pet” message. An “(F)” after the pool means that it was picked from the favs pool (if probability is > 0 and < 1 and favsOnly is off).

Updated the log above.

[tflo]

New version:

PetWalker-3.0.0-dev3.zip new version below

• Added info for /pw s and /pw h
• Fixed most of the chat print coloring
• Actually added the auto-switch to All Pets when setting probability (see changelog)
• Changed the pool logic a bit --> possibly new bugs, please test!

[tsemoana]

Excellent! I'll give this a go Thursday and/or Friday and get back to you.

[tflo]

New version:

PetWalker-300-dev4.zip

Changelog

3.0.0-dev4 (2026-02-12)

• New feature: Configurable probability of favorite pets in All Pets mode. Idea by @tsemoana on GitHub.

  • You set the probability with the usual favorites toggle f command, but followed by a number between 0 and 1.
  • For example /pw f 0.5 gives you an equal probability (50%) that a random pet is picked from your favorites or from your non-favorites pool. With 0.9, nine out of ten pets (on average) will be from your favorites, and so on.
  • Hint: You don’t have to type the zero before the decimal point.
  • With /pw f 0, you’ll only ever get non-favorites.
  • /pw f 1 does not what you think, but will simply activate the old All Pets mode as you know it (all pets, favs and non-favs, in one single pool).
  • To summon only favorites, you just toggle from All Pets to Favs Only with /pw f (as it was before).
  • Your probability value is remembered, and used whenever you switch back to All Pets mode with /pw f.
  • When you set/change the probability value, PW will automatically go into All Pets mode, if you were in Favs Only mode.

• Auto-fix settings: When your active pool (for example, Favorites) doesn’t contain any summonable pet, PW will now actively try to fix the setting by switching to All Pets and generating a combined pool, as if you typed /pw f 1.

  • This should significantly reduce cases that trigger the Zero Pool warning/hints, which some apparently regarded as spam.
  • You should get the Zero Pool warning only if after reinitializing the pool with the fixed settings, there are still no pets in the pool. In this case, PW will also deactivate the auto-summon timer, as with /pw 0.

• Code cleanup and refactoring.

• Add messages, help, status for the new feature; reworked other chat prints and coloring.

• Change verbosity level for some messages.

• Nicer formatting of timer and remaining timer values in prints.

[tsemoana]

I've played with it the last few days (the dev3 version) and I like it! Encountered no errors, the setting works, and it does what it's supposed to do. I'll install dev4 tonight or tomorrow and give that a go.

There was one thing I found counter intuitive. But I'm not sure if that is standard new PetWalker install behaviour, or a remnant of userdata left over from the release version of PetWalker.

What I did before (un)installing PetWalker

• log into the game and remove all favourites

What I did for (un)install:

• uninstall PetWalker release via CurseForge app
• remove the leftover PetWalker folder from the add-ons folder entirely
• extract the dev-version and paste that folder in the add-ons folder

What I noticed in game:

• I logged into one of my characters
• opened pet journal, saw no favourites (as expected)
• set a number of favourites
• set PetWalker to summon from the new Favs+NonFavs mode
• it worked as described
• logged out of this character, logged into another
• PetWalker errored with the 'No Pets' and fell back to 'summon from all'

When checking the pet journal, I had no favourites

My expectation, when setting the favourites on the previous character, was that these were account wide. I had not yet changed any PetWalker settings at that time. And I assumed that standard behaviour for PetWalker would be 'summon from all' and that therefore setting favourites would just be the regular account wide favourites.

[tflo]

Thanks for testing!

before (un)installing PetWalker […] log into the game and remove all favourites

Not necessary. Global favs are saved by the game (Pet Journal), char favs are saved by PW in the char-specific SavedVariables file.

What I did for (un)install: […]

You are completely overcomplicating it 😉. Just unzip the dev version from here, and drag the ‘PetWalker’ folder into your AddOns folder, simply replacing (not merging) the existing one. That’s all. (And with the dev version in the AddOns folder, of course ignore any PW updates suggested by the CurseForge app.)

To go back to the regular release version, just locate PW in the CF app and do “reinstall” from the contextual menu.

PetWalker errored with the 'No Pets' and fell back to 'summon from all'

I guess (hope) you mean that you got a message, right? (not a Lua error in BugSack)

Likely, the 2nd toon was set to per-char favs, and it didn’t yet have any char favs. In this case the message is normal.

checking the pet journal, I had no favourites […] My expectation, when setting the favourites on the previous character, was that these were account wide

While in Favs(Only) mode, PW distinguishes between Global Favorites and Per-char Favorites, which you can switch with /pw c. With per-char favs activated, the Pet Journal shows the char favs (if any), not the global ones.¹

This switch is independent from 'Favs vs All’ (/pw f) and its state is saved per char. It is only relevant if you are in Favs Only mode (or the new Favs+NonFavs mode with probability set to something between 0 and 1, but not 0 or 1).

If you were in FavsOnly mode or Favs+NonFavs mode (with probability not 1 or 0) before switching to the toon that didn’t have char favs, then you got the message because the toon didn’t have char favs (PW couldn’t create the favs pool, and has probably adjusted your pool to All Combined (like /pw f 1)). But you shouldn’t get the msg when the toon was not set to per-char favs (and you did have global favs). I’ll have to check that…🤯.

---

Edit: Significantly changed the explanation of the relation between Favs+NonFavs mode, probability setting, and per-char favs; I got confused myself 😉. So, if you've read this post via mail, please read the last part here again!

Footnotes

1. Unlike the global favs, the char favs are not sorted at top in the PJ. This is a limitation of how the system works. But you get a complete list of your char favs at the end of the status report (/pw s). ↩

[tsemoana]

The removing of the favourites is a separate thing. I did that earlier because my favourites list had gotten unwieldy. And that was the trigger for this feature request to begin with :)

I found I added so many 'favourites' that my actual favourites were showing up less often than I wanted. But having just those actual favourites would make the pool too small. So I ended up on this idea.
And then decided to post it here, and wait a bit with adding new favourites to see if this was something you could and wanted to pick up. Which you did and then everything happened very fast :D

So I hadn't gotten around to picking new favourites yet before installing the dev version. And I then selected new favourites while logged in on an alt without changing any PetWalker settings. So I assumed I was setting account wide favourites. But found that these weren't there anymore when logging into my main. The main did previously have character-favs. But I'd assumed, with the deleting of the regular PetWalker version, that any residual userdata and such would be gone as well and I'd start from scratch., with account-wide favs.

PetWalker errored with the 'No Pets' and fell back to 'summon from all'

I guess (hope) you mean that you got a message, right? (not a Lua error in BugSack)
Yeah, sorry I wasn't clearer. I got the message in chat.